This week I participated in a live session of EdTechTalk. The session featured Alex Ragone, Vinnie Vrotny, and Arvind Grover. The special guest they featured and talked to was Bill Stites, Director of Technology at The Montclair Kimberley Academy in New Jersey. Bill spoke in detail about how his school progressed over the last five years from hard wired internet to wireless. This switch inevitably led to faculty using laptops more and then students eventually brought in theirs. This transition led the school to buy-in to a one-to-one laptop program for all their students.
I want to keep this blog short and very open ended, so I pose a couple questions to everyone else, would you want your school to give every kid a laptop? Should all schools have a program like this?
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Literature Article #1
Title: "Cell Phones as Teaching Tools"
Author: William M. Ferriter
Periodical: Educational Leadership, Vol.68, Issue 2, p.85-86
Link to Article: http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/oct10/vol68/num02/Cell-Phones-as-Teaching-Tools.aspx
This article very briefly describes how, in the authors opinion, cell phones can be used as tools in the classroom instead of distractions. With broad, non-cited statistics to back up his findings, such as 75% of all kids ages 12-17 have cell phones, and 75% of all students with cell phone have unlimited texting plans, the author states that there are only two steps you need to take in order to use cell phones in classrooms as tools.
The first step is to "Make cell phones visible". By this he means instead of fearing what students might be doing with their phones hidden underneath a desk, have all your students keep their phones on their desks so you can see when they go off.The author believes that this will cause students to act more responsibly with their phones in school. I don't believe this because I feel that you can never make anyone act responsibly. The only thing i believe this first step will cause is even bigger distractions because the teacher will not only hear it going off in the middle of a lesson, but see them all texting back "I'm in class right now call me later".
The second and final step the author outlines in his article is titled "Show colleagues and administrators one convincing classroom application". In my opinion, he means "Convince the people that sign your paychecks that cell phones can be useful in class". The example he uses to demonstrate this point is a polling application that is web based called Poll Everywhere. With this program the teacher can set up questions and polls that they display to the class, then the class has to text their response to the website for data collection and results. The problem i see with this is that their are many other ways to poll a class that doesn't involve possibly charging their parents for texting. I foresee a few angry emails from parents asking why their student was forced to text even though they don't have an unlimited plan. In short, I believe this author needs more research and better examples to really convince me that cell phones are a useful tool in a classroom setting.
Author: William M. Ferriter
Periodical: Educational Leadership, Vol.68, Issue 2, p.85-86
Link to Article: http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/oct10/vol68/num02/Cell-Phones-as-Teaching-Tools.aspx
This article very briefly describes how, in the authors opinion, cell phones can be used as tools in the classroom instead of distractions. With broad, non-cited statistics to back up his findings, such as 75% of all kids ages 12-17 have cell phones, and 75% of all students with cell phone have unlimited texting plans, the author states that there are only two steps you need to take in order to use cell phones in classrooms as tools.
The first step is to "Make cell phones visible". By this he means instead of fearing what students might be doing with their phones hidden underneath a desk, have all your students keep their phones on their desks so you can see when they go off.The author believes that this will cause students to act more responsibly with their phones in school. I don't believe this because I feel that you can never make anyone act responsibly. The only thing i believe this first step will cause is even bigger distractions because the teacher will not only hear it going off in the middle of a lesson, but see them all texting back "I'm in class right now call me later".
The second and final step the author outlines in his article is titled "Show colleagues and administrators one convincing classroom application". In my opinion, he means "Convince the people that sign your paychecks that cell phones can be useful in class". The example he uses to demonstrate this point is a polling application that is web based called Poll Everywhere. With this program the teacher can set up questions and polls that they display to the class, then the class has to text their response to the website for data collection and results. The problem i see with this is that their are many other ways to poll a class that doesn't involve possibly charging their parents for texting. I foresee a few angry emails from parents asking why their student was forced to text even though they don't have an unlimited plan. In short, I believe this author needs more research and better examples to really convince me that cell phones are a useful tool in a classroom setting.
Equal Access...?
In class last week we discussed in small groups what we thought equal access means to technology in schools. I could understand what people were saying, but I believe that equal access to technology in today's classrooms really boils down to two main points: funding and alternatives.
Funding is something that is out of the control of both the teachers and the students, however the administration plays a role in influencing district and government funding. Funding can greatly affect the degree to which technology is available in a classroom, as well as how easy it is to access any form of technology. Of course funding greatly varies from district to district, and state to state, but the fact is that it does play a role to defining equal access for today's learners.
Alternatives is something that I discovered more about during my undergraduate studies in college. If you wanted pizza one night you had like 568 different options(an exaggeration) but you could always find a place to get more pizza for less money. In terms of equal access, finding alternatives is a responsibility that falls upon the teacher, given proper authorization and support from his or her school. So maybe your school doesn't have a laptop for each kid, or smart boards in each class, but maybe you can assign a group project requiring library time so kids without computers can work with ones who have them. Building your own smart board and getting it approved is also an alternative.
There are many ways to provide equal access to all of your students, some of the more obvious ways require significant funding and support from your administration and district, but the key to finding all the alternatives you can and ensuring that each and every student can learn from and with technology, is the one ingredient that often separates extraordinary teachers from ordinary ones; creativity.
Funding is something that is out of the control of both the teachers and the students, however the administration plays a role in influencing district and government funding. Funding can greatly affect the degree to which technology is available in a classroom, as well as how easy it is to access any form of technology. Of course funding greatly varies from district to district, and state to state, but the fact is that it does play a role to defining equal access for today's learners.
Alternatives is something that I discovered more about during my undergraduate studies in college. If you wanted pizza one night you had like 568 different options(an exaggeration) but you could always find a place to get more pizza for less money. In terms of equal access, finding alternatives is a responsibility that falls upon the teacher, given proper authorization and support from his or her school. So maybe your school doesn't have a laptop for each kid, or smart boards in each class, but maybe you can assign a group project requiring library time so kids without computers can work with ones who have them. Building your own smart board and getting it approved is also an alternative.
There are many ways to provide equal access to all of your students, some of the more obvious ways require significant funding and support from your administration and district, but the key to finding all the alternatives you can and ensuring that each and every student can learn from and with technology, is the one ingredient that often separates extraordinary teachers from ordinary ones; creativity.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Homework: The Ipod Touch in the Classroom by Kern Kelley
When i first saw this article, I was excited to see all the ways the iPod Touch, or iTouch, could be utilized in a classroom setting. But sadly after viewing the entire video, I came to the conclusion that based on Mr. Kelley's presentation, the iPod Touch is not very useful. As an owner of an iPod touch, I love discovering all the ways i can use the technology. Mr. Kelley spent half the video describing step by step how to open and set up your iPod, then once he got into the "meat and potatoes" of the usefulness in the classroom, it came out more like "tofu and instant potatoes". All of the applications and uses he described in the video were simply generic tools for the teacher to replace efficient devices (mouse, computer, grade book) with an iPod. To put it simply, he didn't make a strong argument for using an iPod at all in a classroom. He showed us how to create more work for teachers when it is completely unnecessary to. Why would a teacher spend all night typing up grade book entries into GoogleDocs just to use a second application to stream them to their iPod, to them mark attendance in class next day? Wouldn't writing in a book be easier? or even just using a grade book program on a computer?
Check out the video for yourself and decide for yourself... (link below)
http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=464
Check out the video for yourself and decide for yourself... (link below)
http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=464
Friday, October 1, 2010
"Google and the Guitar" with Adam Contois
I was looking through the past EdTechTalk web casts and I came across the show EdTech Brainstorm. This show was from September 26th, 2009. It was titled "Google and the Guitar". The featured guest (Adam Contois) was a colleague of the host and he is a Systems Administrator and an avid guitar player. The discussion was centered around the idea of using Google applications in a school environment. They focused on using Gmail in schools, mostly high school and college. The integrated chat feature in Gmail could save teachers and professors a lot of time by making chain emails unnecessary. The other benefits they highlight include Google's use of their own servers instead of the schools, so no network bogging down.
Check out this video if you want to learn more about the benefits of using Gmail as a school email program.
Here is the link: http://edtechtalk.com/node/3794
Check out this video if you want to learn more about the benefits of using Gmail as a school email program.
Here is the link: http://edtechtalk.com/node/3794
Computer Games in the classroom
I just watched a video that was featured as part of the K12 online conference 2009, given by Ollie Bray, titled: "Using computer games as a context for learning and social interaction". Here's the link: http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=531
This video presented some very interesting ideas on how to incorporate video and computer games into classroom learning in any grade level. Ollie (the man giving the presentation) gave examples of several activities his organization had come up with and had seen used in schools in the UK. Ollie focused on the popular video game Guitar Hero and showed the audience how the game can be used to teach art, music, teamwork, creativity, and social skills. "Thinking outside the Xbox", the program in Scotland Ollie and his peers created, has been showing schools how to use something children do after school for hours, in the classroom to encourage learning for the past three years. This is something I would definitely consider working into my lesson plans someday in the future if I decide to be a teacher.
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